This post is dedicated to my new favorite material:

Stainless Steel.

You see, so many things are made of plastic. And in case you haven't caught on yet, plastic sucks. It sucks for the environment, and it sucks for your health.


1. Water Bottles

Option #1: Disposable plastic water bottle.

Oh, where to begin?
If you're reading this, you're probably a friend of mine, and as such, you probably already know why you shouldn't be relying primarily on bottled water. And I say this as I live in Israel, where tap water is far worse quality than it is in the States, and many buildings have very old pipes, which, no doubt, leach all manner of organ-frying compounds into our morning coffee. But despite all of these mitigating factors, there is still absolutely no reason to be relying on bottled water.

We could talk about the political issues, about how privatization of water leaves corporations in control of our water supply (scary) and, on the most basic level, that water is a human right and as such really shouldn't be used for profit. We could talk about the fact that we don't recycle most of our water bottles, and that even if we do, the total energy cost is not necessarily saving us that much. We could talk about how, most of the time, it's just bottled tap water anyway. We could talk about how bottled water costs something like A THOUSAND TIMES what water costs from your tap, by volume. Here's some stuff from the National Resource Defense Council, and some from the Sierra Club. But you probably don't even need me to say it.

But how about this: when all is said and done, one bottle of water takes about seven bottles of water to produce. So sayeth Pablo. Check his math here.

And, of course, there is that pesky issue of phthalates. According to www.phthalates.org, they're all about "Performance. Convenience. Fun." Hmm. Yeah, I think synthetic estrogens that can severely disrupt hormone balances in the body are super fun! Let's take it from the Environmental Working Group:

Health Effects related to Phthalates: Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Endocrine system, Reproduction and fertility, Birth or developmental effects, Persistent and bioaccumulative, Brain and nervous system, Immune system (including sensitization and allergies)

Convinced not to drink bottled water at all costs? Don't sleep easy yet. Phthalates are in everything. They've just been banned from many children's products--like toys--by the US, but they're expecially common in cosmetic products. Do you have the ovaries to see if your favorite bronzer is phthalate-free? Check it here: www.cosmeticsdatabase.com



Option #2: Nalgene or similar #7 or other hard plastic reusable bottle.

So you've probably heard of BPA and if you can't remember what it stands for, you at least know it's bad for you and it comes from water bottles. I'm of the mind that that short description is sufficient, but if you're interested, here's what BPA does, according to the Environmental Working Group:

Although its long-time use in consumer products has come with assurances of its safety from industry, studies conducted over the past 20 years now show it to be not only a ubiquitous pollutant in the human body - it contaminates nearly 93% of the population - but also a potent developmental toxin at very low doses.

In September 2008 the National Toxicology Program of NIH determined that BPA may pose risks to human development, raising concerns for early puberty, prostate effects, breast cancer, and behavioral impacts from early-life exposures. Pregnant women, infants and young children are most vulnerable to the harmful effects of BPA, although a recent study linked BPA exposures to risk of heart disease, diabetes, and liver toxicity.

Yep. It's in us all. Or at least, all of us except the 7% who managed not to attend a single event in the last ten years where they gave out free logo Nalgene bottles. (And if you are one of those people, you've got to tell me your secret.) Alright, alright, lets not blame Nalgene-- they did promise to stop using it, after all--and who can really hold them accountable for putting a crude oil-derived synthetic estrogen compound in 93% of us, anyhow? Their bottles are just so darn trendy.

But you get my point. Throw out the #7 bottles, or try to recycle them if you can. Do it now. Srsly.

But what about #2 and #5 plastics, you ask? In my opinion, they're both #7s waiting to happen. It took consumers this long to get BPA-ridden bottles [mostly] off the market, and there were naysayers shouting that we were all stupid hippie granola health freaks all along the way. The truth is that we don't even know what hormone-altering chemicals are leeching out of the stuff in our homes, but considering what we've found out so far, I'd rather not be licking something that's made of petrochemicals. I think that's a reasonable stand to take.

Option #3: Aluminum bottle.

I'll admit, they're cute. And lightweight. And they don't leach BPA (for the most part--some are made with linings that can contain BPA). But if we're relatively sure we don't want plastics in our mouth, do we really want aluminum? Let's consider.

Environmentally speaking, it's a mixed bag with aluminum. On the one hand, it's very easily recyclable, and can be recycled again and again with no breakdown in quality. Point one! But not so fast--the mining and extracting process for aluminum is pretty nasty environmentally. Take it away, Environmental Literacy Council:

The greenhouse gases resulting from primary production include perfluorocarbons (PFC), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), fluoride, sulfur dioxide (S0₂), and carbon dioxide (CO₂). Of these gases, PFC's resulting from the smelting process are the most potent. Primary aluminum production is the leading source of perfluorocarbon emissions in the United States. PAH emissions result from the manufacture of anodes for smelters and during the electrolytic process. Sulfur dioxide and sodium fluoride are emitted from smelters and electrical plants. SO₂ is one of the primary precursors of acid rain.

Hmm...
Well...
It's not plastic.
So I guess that's...better?

And the icing on the cake? There's that pesky rumor that it might just cause Alzheimer's. But once again, we don't know. Yet. So go ahead, drink from your aluminum water bottle. Rub it all over your face, why dontcha. You won't remember it later when you get Alzheimer's, anyway.



Option #4: 100% Stainless steel!

I feel I have nothing to say.

Why, you ask?

Because stainless steel's environmental record is...well...stainless. It's 100% recyclable, and these days, half of stainless steel stuff is made from recycled material, making it pretty awesome environmentally. The only possible environmental or health problem I could find with it is if you were to grind up a bunch of it and dump it in a lake, the fish would probably die. So as long as you make sure not to do that when you're done with your water bottle, you should be just fine.

Plus, no gross plastic (or tin foil) aftertaste.

Now that I've gone through all the reasons why you should ditch other materials for stainless steel, here are some more great options for stainless steel replacements for your current food and beverage carrying needs.



2. Coffee Mug

Option#1: Disposable paper, plastic, or [eek!] styrofoam cup

C'mon, people. Just...come the fuck on. Yeah. That's all I have to say about that.



Option #2: Reusable plastic coffee mug.

Seriously? After everything I just wrote about plastics, you're gonna keep filling it with boiling liquids and consuming them? Do I have to mention that heat increases the leaching of BPA?
No?
Good.



Option #3: Stainless Steel French Press Coffee Mug

I'll admit: part of the reason for this entire post is that I've been lusting after some new stainless steel pretties, like this awesome mug. Without sounding like an advertisement, I will briefly recount its features--built in french press, so you can use your own [Dean's or Larry's fair trade organic] coffee (or loose tea, for that matter) from home; switchable lid so you can use it as a regular old travel mug if you want to; super secret compartment that screws into the bottom for smuggling secrets out of Langley, or alternatively, to pack another dose of whatever you're drinking. Yes. Awesome.



3. Lunchbox.

Option #1: Takeout.

I'm willing to ignore the obvious environmental impact on this one. You can afford to eat lunch out every day? Don't even talk to me.



Option #2: Tupperware

Leakproof and convenient?
Yes.
Petrochemical-leaching plastic?
Oh boy.
The internets were falling all over themselves to disprove some scam email going around about microwaves causing plastic to leach dioxin, but now that the BPA thing has, apparently, taken hold, what say ye about what we can do to reduce our exposure, Mayo Clinic?

Not microwaving plastic food containers and not putting hot foods into them. Likewise, don't wash these types of containers in the dishwasher. Heat, detergents and scrubbing can break down bisphenol A and increase exposure. Instead opt for glass or other non-plastic cooking and serving containers.

Ahem.


Option #4: Stainless Steel Tiffin

Adorable. I have ordered one already, I just have to get it to a friend who is coming here in the near future. Also great because we don't have a microwave at work, and I can't put glass jars (my food container of choice) in the toaster oven, so I'm kinda screwed on that point. 100% atainless steel, and what's more, produced by an ethically-managed cooperative in India. Next step--fair trade certification!



Steelfully yours,
S

So, despite my best efforts, I got sick.

It started off as a little cough, a little lump I couldn't clear from my throat during a movie with Yonatan's mom, Nora. Monday was my day off and I dutifully spent it in bed trying to nurse my sore throat back to health. I had decided to go to the closest organic market (which is in Neve Tzedek, a 30 minute walk or 10 minute bus or bike away) to buy some cough drops and zinc lozenges, but the thought of getting there either by my own leg power or public transportation made me want to crawl back under the covers and cry. But then I remembered: I'm in Israel! There are herbs and vitamins in the regular pharmacy. There's one on Jerusalem St, five minutes or so by foot from my house, and the pain in my throat was reaching unbearable so around three I dragged my ass out of bed, put on my ipod, and went in search of mentholated relief.

I'll admit it; I'm a bit of a podcast addict. And this funny thing happens when you listen to a lot of NPR but you live in another country where you forget for a moment that your ears and your eyes are actually on two different continents. So, for example, I'm on my bike, listening to Ira Glass telling the quirky and poignant story about a shopping mall in Tennessee and all of a sudden I pass a guy wearing a kippa and I'm like, hey! Jew! I know that funny hat thing! It's a flash of recognition and identification that gets programmed into you when you grow up in a small Jewish community in the South. How coincidental that I, another Jew, happen to see you here in Tennessee! And only then do I remember that I'm not, in fact, in Tennessee, as my ears would have me believe.

So you can only imagine the even stranger effect when I listen to the Savage LoveCast in public, and especially in Jaffa. To illustrate why, here is the description of the most recent episode, taken from the podcast's website:

His dick is shaped so crazy, he can’t find a condom to fit the thing!
What is the polite way to kick the third in your three-way out of your bed?
Crazy in-laws: Will their problems plague the caller for the rest of her life?

Picture it: here's Dan Savage, in my ear, talking all about fetishes and vacuum-like sex toys for men and should you agree to participate in some kinky somethingorother or should you dump the mutherfucker already, and at the same time my eyes are showing me lots of religious Muslim women wearing hijab (head scarves) and Hebrew and Arabic street signs. And then I have these moments where I forget that not everyone is hearing what I'm hearing, and I get really embarrassed, because as much as I'd love to talk to religious Muslim women about S&M I imagine it would be an awkward conversation at very least, and I certainly wouldn't start by playing them Dan Savage.

It may not have been the best choice, then, while I was sick and out of it enough already, to search the SuperPharm pharmacy for cough drops while listening to the Savage LoveCast on my ipod. It becomes particularly problematic when other people try to interact with me (like saying "excuse me" or offering to help me find something--no, wait, no one offers to help you find stuff, it's still Israel) without realizing that my ears are in Sex-Positive-Relationship-Advice-Columnist-Dan-Savage-Land, and I get very confused. I turned the ipod off.

It helped me remain in one continent, but it did not help me find cough drops. The pharmacy did have all sorts of herbs, but another thing you forget when you're not in America is that many products are not, in fact, made in America using FDA-approved labels in a recognizable language. In fact, many herbal products come from Russia, or Tibet, or, somewhat surprisingly, Germany. It may have some sort of flowery picture on the front, and maybe even the scientific name written out in English characters, but little else in the way of legible ingredients or instructions could be reasonably expected. I combed the store for some simple Halls, but all I found was this wierd German brand with lots of artificial crap and fake sweeteners I wouldn't put in my body even if I weren't sick. I was about to give up and wait in line for the pharmacist (and pray he spoke English) when I spotted it: a little countertop stand of Fisherman's Friend Aniseed Lozenges. Score! I grabbed three packets and ran for the register.

Lozenges notwithstanding, I was feeling even worst the next day. I called in sick to work and then called my health insurance company. And in a shockingly Michael Moore moment, this is what happened:

Me: I'm sick, and I need to see a doctor. How do I know which ones are in my network?
Insurance Guy: Well, do you want to go to a clinic, or do you want us to send one to your house?
Me: (Dumbstruck silence) Uh...
Insurance Guy: You probably want to go to a clinic. It will take about three hours for the one we send to get there.
Me: Actually, I think three hours sounds just fine.
Insurance Guy: Ok, I'm ordering one for you right now. What's your address?

Yes. That's right. They sent a doctor to my house. And you know how much it cost me? The same copay it would have cost to go to a doctor's office: $10.

Now let's not go overboard here--this is the same insurance company that told me they'd be happy to pay for my annual gynecologist exam, on the condition it turns out that I do, in fact, have cervical cancer. (It's Harel, for those of you who are wondering. And I'm switching to a much better one I just found that's cheaper and has, yes, $0 copays and you can see a doctor whenever you want. Ask me if you need insurance in Israel.) But the idea of finding a good doctor, figuring out where their office is, and then figuring out how to get there--these are not simple issues when you live in the city without a car--was really overwhelming. I can't tell you how wonderful it was when, two hours later, a very nice Russian doctor with a last name I couldn't even begin to pronounce, wearing a white coat and carrying a black medical bag (I swear I am not making this up) knocked on my door. Granted, he didn't speak English, and our encounter involved a lot of comically mimed symptoms from two imperfect Hebrew speakers, but actually, it was great. He sat down on my couch, took my blood pressure, checked my throat and ears, and pronounced that it's not strep, it's a virus, and I need to stay in bed and drink fluids. He gave me a prescription for some syrup I'm not going to take, wished me to feel better, and left. I paid the 41 shekels by credit card over the phone after he left.

Yonatan, sweetheart that he is, came later last night to take care of me and I immediately put him to work making soup. I'll post the recipe if I can--it's my favorite soup when you're sick and needing some serious nutrition. It was so good to have someone else to take care of me! He's so good at it, too. I was finally able to sleep mostly through the night last night, and it made a world of difference. Today I am finally feeling better, and hopefully will be back at work tomorrow--we're meeting with a new olive oil cooperative and I don't want to miss it!

A birthday gift for my mom's 55th, which is tomorrow. She, more than anyone, will appreciate this.
Vocals: Sharon Rose Goldberg
Guitar: Yonatan Cwik




Happy Birthday, Mommy.



PS: Remember Jackie DeCarlo of Fair Trade Beginners? She dropped me a line last night that she blogged about me here--I'm so honored! And yet another reason to check out her fantastic fair trade blog.

This post is an unabashed shoutout to my best friend, jtothemo, who is now blogging at not one, but TWO new wordpresses. From the Green Dictionary is her Arabic blog; and her personal one is called the long way home, which made me think of the similarly-named Dixie Chicks song, The Long Way Around.

I know, I know, it's the Dixie Chicks. But you know what? Hells yeah, it's the Dixie Chicks! I have recently become addicted to a few of their songs, each for different reasons. But it all started when I saw the documentary about them, Shut Up and Sing, a few weeks ago (at the time you could get it on google video, but I won't post the link in case it gets it taken off). Highly recommended. They're not just girls who mouth off for the press--they said what they said about the war because they meant it, and even though they lost tons of airtime on the radio and had former fans boycotting their concerts they stuck to their guns and refused to apologize, and for that, I tip my hat to them.

So here is The Long Way Around, which I think speaks to my nomadic life in a profound (and twangy) way, as a tribute to jtothemo and her new digs.


I Hope, which was written after Hurricane Katrina, and should be the corollary Obama song to the amazing will.i.am piece.

Not Ready to Make Nice, particularly appropriate for last night when a self-proclaimed chauvinist made it into my house and got himself into a rather heated argument with me and Yonatan, who was, appropriately, wearing his "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" tee shirt. We left. I hope this person will be officially uninvited to our house from now on.

So Hard, which is now officially my activist theme song for those days when you can't escape the fact that it doesn't come easy and it doesn't come fast.


*UPDATE: embedded songs should all be working now :)

In lieu of a large post today, I'll round up a few fair trade goodies I'm loving recently.

1. Our new fair trade blog. The post from today is about yesterday's visit to Kfar Kara and has some nice pics. I'll be blogging there regularly with goings on in the world of Israeli-Palestinian fair trade. (End shameless plug.)


2. Dangling Fan Earrings. So cute they literally make me want to pierce my ears. I'm really not kidding. And they're made by a fair trade Balinese artisan cooperative. SERRV, $34.


3. Larry's Beans Ethiopian Mama Nile single-origin coffee. Yes, yes, I'm a Dean's Beans girl, but they don't sell it in North Carolina (which is where my parents live) so the folks brought me this instead...and I'm addicted. It's got the most chocolatey, velvety aroma--it may even beat Ahab's Revenge. And as a bonus, it comes in Larry's special "bio bag", which is supposed to decompose in the compost in a couple of months. This, of course, prompted many jokes from my roommates along the lines of, "Quick, make some coffee before the bag turns into dirt!" Larry's Beans, $13.25.


4. Soluna Winery- Viña de la Solidaridad. Yo and I are planning a trip to Argentina in the summer, and, of course, I'm figuring out how to mix business with pleasure and researching Argentinian fair trade like crazy. Right now, one of the country's biggest fair trade products is wine, and the Soluna winery in Mendoza is part of that growing sector. Come on--it's got a stamp that says "Vineyard of Solidarity" people! It's like so many of the best things all rolled up into one: Argentina, fair trade, solidarity, and WINE! Needless to say, I will be calling them and hopefully we'll spend some time at the viña. Check them out here.


5. Jackie DeCarlo's blog, Fair Trade Beginners. So the story goes like this: I started working for a fair trade organization and realized very quickly that I needed to understand it better in order to do a good job, and so, like any good Hampshire student, I immediately made myself a reading list, ordered the books, and had my parents bring them from the States. Jackie is the author of The Beginner's Guide to Fair Trade, which I read and found extremely useful. So I googled her, found her blog, and decided to email her to consult on some things I'm working on, because apparently that's what I do--I read books and then call up the authors as if they should know me. Not only did she agree, she was extremely helpful and super sweet. And she's got a great blog. Check it out here.


Oh my, those did get longer as we went along, didn't they? Oh well. I like this format though--I think I'll try to give more roundups.

Happy fair trading!
S

When the coalition of organizations against the massacre in Gaza decided to hold a march from the boardwalk in South Tel Aviv to Gan HaShnayim in Jaffa, I figured a couple hundred people would show. We're not yet sure of the final numbers, but I heard it was somewhere around 7,000. In any case, Yefet street was filled with people carrying signs and shouting protest slogans ("Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies!" and "End the siege!"and more.) Of all the protests this war, it was by far the most mixed crowd. Although people tended to stay in blocs, I had the feeling it was about 50/50 Israeli Jews and Arabs. It felt good to be walking through my own neighborhood, especially because I volunteered to be an "Organizer Against the Occupation," which meant I was part of a group of women (and a few men) wearing orange dayglo vests and making sure the protest didn't turn violent. It's an idea that came out of a meeting of some women friends of mine, trying to figure out how to use our presence to discourage violence at demonstrations. As it turned out, there was little need. Since most of the protest was in Jaffa, the right-wing counter protestors (who had shown up at every other protest thusfar) decided to stay home.

But there's a point to this post, which is that there's an amazing thing at left wing protests here, and it's called Samba.

Yes, Samba. Like the drum music.

It's a group of young activists who rehearse weekly and turn boring (though important) protests into righteously indignant marching bands. Their beats are created to compliment the shouted slogans, and they add just the right rhythm to keep you marching through the street. Iris and Maysaloun have joined; Yonatan and I want to too--we'll see if we have time. In the meantime, I've declared myself the unofficial Activist Samba videographer. Here are a few clips from the Jaffa demo. They're pretty dark--you won't see too much in most of them. But they're not there for the eyes anyway.

(Technical note: I'm uploading this first clip through blogger and the other two embedded from youtube. I'd love to hear feedback on which one is better. Thanks! -Mgmt.)

Originally posted as a comment to an article on Jewschool written by my good friend KungFuJew, but it warrants its own post here.

This morning my office spent a full half hour trying to make sense of the top two headlines on y-net, the web version of the popular newspaper Yediot Achronot.

The first one was:
“At least 15 rockets land in Southern Israel this morning”

and the second one was:

“78% of Israelis consider the Gaza operation a success.”





UPDATE: KFJ also has some excellent new lolz on his blog. Mad props. -Mgmt.

Me, Maysaloun, and other Jaffans protesting the massacre in Gaza this week at a candlelight vigil in Gan HaShnayim.

No long post today. But I leave you with this, an excellent short post from fellow fellow Josh, reprinted without permission (but I don't think he'll mind):

Bombs Over Be’er Sheva January 4, 2009

The last few days have seen rockets hitting Be’er Sheva for the first time in its history. The first one hit Tuesday night. I was standing in my kitchen eating peanut butter in my underwear when the air-raid siren starts blaring, and I booked it to the shelter. After that first initial adrenaline-filled incident, the other times the siren has sounded have been comparatively tame. The siren is followed by this wonderfully awful gut-clenching waiting period of roughly sixty seconds. The sound of the explosion is like a pressure valve, and as the tension felt during the siren’s wail subsides, a giddiness follows in its place. I laugh and giggle stupidly, and listen to my heart thumping.

This is, of course, all petty and silly ado about almost nothing compared with the destruction and death and suffering felt in Gaza this past week. As many as 460 Palestinians have died at the time of this post, and thousands have been wounded, with more promised to come. For this reason, writing about the difficulties or stressfulness of ‘life under Qassams’ is, in my opinion, so trivial, so insignificant as to be almost insulting. Yes, Qassams fall in our cities. Yes, it is very stressful to live in Sderot, no doubt. Do Qassams cause even a fraction of the damage to human life and infrastructure as aerial bombardment by F-15s? No. And yes, it is that simple.

After many months, back I am at the keyboard, because when all else fails all I have is my fingertips and a wireless connection, and because there's nothing else I can do.

I suppose you can congratulate me. I've been here six months and am experiencing my first war.

I updated facebook today sounding hopeless and responding to worried and caring friends. Then I updated again with this:

"Sharon says to her American friends: if you're gonna stand on that side of the ocean and tell me this is going to make me safer, I have nothing else to say to you."

Yes, yes. Look who's self-righteous now. Normally I'm not one to burn bridges. But today, no one cares if I'm a citizen or a left-wing social justice activist from a different country here to contribute my skills to the general bettering of the world for a limited time period. And I have to say, it makes me a particular shade of purple when I hear Americans talking about how much they "support Israel" this week, and by that mean that they are in favor of the massacre in Gaza.

Tell me: who exactly is it that you're supporting? Because it's not me. I'm not Israeli but I do live here at the moment and I could be blown up any number of ways all the same, and this thing you support is making it, if anything, significantly more likely. Imagine you're in Boston and there's a massive airstrike against Amherst and 380 people have died and a thousand wounded in the past three days.

Lets not overreact here--relatively speaking, I'm quite safe. My fellow fellow, however, is hiding in a bomb shelter in Be'er Sheva. He'll be fine, I'm sure, but I just want you, my "I support the IDF" American friends, to understand that the unbelievable escalation of violence on the part of that army you love has made me afraid to get on a bus. No, things are not one-sided and no, that doesn't mean I'll take this "you're just blaming the victim" nonsense.


---

"I guess the only way to say it is that we're scared to death of peace," said Nitzan.

Today my roommates and I convened a gathering of Arab and Jewish friends to share our anger and pain and try to organize together. In our opening round, we shared how we were feeling. I listened to everyone else, and then said something along these lines:

Maybe it's stupid to say, but I feel like I have less experience with this than all of you. You have all lived here your whole lives, and gone through many things like this--maybe not as bad, maybe worse. This is the first time in my life I've been so close to a war situation like this. I'm not experienced--I don't have the tools, don't know how I'm supposed to deal with it. I don't know what to expect. Will it get worse? Will it stop soon? Will I be afraid to ride a bus or go anywhere near central Tel Aviv or downtown Jerusalem? And of course I have friends and family writing to me, worried about me, and what am I supposed to tell them? Yes, I'm perfectly safe... for the time being? I don't know.


---

And of course, almost grotesquely, life here goes on uninterrupted. I have a great job, wonderful friends, a solid support system, privileges out the wazoo, and a partner who didn't get offended when he called at midnight to wish me happy new year and said, "I have several things to wish for you--" and I said, "Can I call you right back?"

But more on those another day. Tonight I'm meditating on what it means to be in a society scared to death of peace.

And praying for a peaceful new year.

It's 3:15 am. I was getting sleepy, so I take a shower and come back to my room to go to bed. But something outside catches my eye--there's just a little too much light for 3:15 am. I put on a nightgown and stand on my bed to get the best view out the window. Two police cars are parked outside and someone moves a ladder to the side of the building. A red light blinks on something strapped to the belt of a man with a knitted kippah. The light is on in the medical clinic across the street.

In Jaffa, these things signal trouble. Two women are seated on the hood of one of the cars and violent flashbacks start flooding my mind. Another eviction? Someone in my building? Could it be?

But something about the scene doesn't seem right, and it takes me a minute to realize it. It's totally calm down there. People in uniforms just milling about. And then I see that there are women police officers, and that they're very pretty. In fact, everyone down there is young and pretty and just milling about. Two guys look up at me and I retreat back into my room. I don't know why.

I'm worried. When I rode home on my bike from rehearsal earlier tonight I found a fire truck extinguishing a flaming dumpster on the far end of the parking lot. No idea what that was about. Could have been intentional--there's a group of neighborhood boys who are notorious for setting fire to things in our parking lot. Or it could have been a cigarette no one bothered to put out. It's so dry and hot here in the summer I'd hardly be surprised.

I still can't figure out what's going on down there. There are still voices and they're still eerily calm. I don't know if I should go to sleep or go down there to protest. I decide to take another look.

It's really bright out there but I can't see the source--it seems to be around the corner. A group of police officers are standing next to one of the cars and laughing about something. I strain my ears to hear anything.

"One moment," someone says, "we want to film it."

And then I see the movie cameras.

"Do you want to perform with us?" asked Sharon.
"I'd be happy to," I said, "but I've never done bellydance before. I don't know if I'll be good enough to perform."
"I'm not worried," siad Sharon. "There's no such thing as not good enough. It's memory. Bellydance is memory. It's the dance form that's the most natural, with the body. You just have to remind yourself how to do it."

There's another Sharon in the theatre project.

It gets confusing sometimes, but it's ok. Sharon (the other one) is a bellydancing teacher, and she completely fucking rocks. She invited me to join her new class, which started last week. I couldn't make it to the first meeting because I was busy being oriented with the other Fellows (hi, Josh!) but I'll be going this Wednesday, provided I can find the studio.

Sharon the gorgeous Yemini bellydancing teacher isn't the only one of the women I've recruited to teach me things I want to learn. In fact, I've managed to pull together pretty much all the classes I decided I wanted to take this year from women in the theatre group. Sahar, who has been doing much of our Arabic translation for the play, is going to teach a group of seven or so of my and Iris's friends conversational Arabic in our house one night a week. And Mary, a Palestinian woman from Yafo in her early 50s, is going to teach me how to make Palestinian food. In exchange, I am going to teach her how to make Mexican food.

Why Mexican? Well, I told her I wanted to learn how to make Palestinian food and she said, "OK, what kind of food will you teach me to make?" and I said, "I make really good Indian food," and she said, "Are you Indian?" and I said, "No," and she said, "Then why are you going to make Indian food?" and I said, "Well, I'm a vegetarian and I'm from the American South, so--" and she said, "Do you know how to make Mexican food?" and I said "Sure, why not?" and she got really excited. In retrospect, I feel it's possible she mistook "American South" for "South America," or alternatively that I said it wrong in Hebrew, but I'm pretty sure she knows I'm not Mexican and was just really excited about guacamole.

It's nice to have conversations about how to properly make majadarah and vegetarian stuffed grape leaves during breaks, because the subject matter of the play is very heavy. In addition to exploring the idea of veiling, it draws its plot from the true story of a Bedouin family in which something like eight of the sisters were murdered by family members as "honor killings" because they removed their veils or spoke with men. Besides that, we're rehearsing in a bomb shelter, and today the air conditioner was broken and the feeling down there was not entirely unlike a Turkish bath.

It's easy to fall into life here and start taking things for granted, like that a bomb shelter is a perfectly natural place to rehearse a multicultural feminist play about religious, societal, and metaphorical veiling of women. You just have to remind yourself where you came from sometimes.

On the matter of reminding myself where I came from, I should mention that last week I got an unexpected bout of nostalgia for North Carolina. We were out of cooking gas and the guy didn't show up to change our tank when he said he was going to so I was out of luck for making my favorite Southern meal (a.k.a. the only Southern food I really care for at all) of chili, cornbread, and sweet tea. So instead I made a playlist on my ipod of North Carolina or otherwise Southern-themed songs. My favorite, which I've listened to just about every day since then, is the heart-achingly beautiful bluegrass song Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show. I like it because it's about someone driving down the coast from New England to my hometown, Raleigh:

Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I'm thumbin' my way into North Caroline
Starin' up the road
Pray to God I see headlights

I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a hopin' for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

And because it's so delicious, here is my first attempt at a video embed. Enjoy.





PS: I have also been having to remind myself that I'm not going back to Hampshire and have been more than just a little homesick for Western Mass. If anyone has a suggestion for a Hampshire College/Western Massachusetts musical cure for the homesick blues equivalent to Wagon Wheel, let's have it.

S

At alternative summer camp, Iris did an exercise with her campers where she asked them to describe their personal vision of utopia.

"Most of them said, 'there would be no occupation and everyone would be vegan,' or something along those lines," she said. But for her, the vision of what an ideal life would look like is not, according to her, so far off from reality. She described things like having a supportive base, a great home, lots of music and art and musicians and artists, and as her roommate and friend I was so honored to be part of her utopian dream.

And it got me thinking about what I want my life to be like, and in this great transitional period, I have the rare and wonderful opportunity to do pretty much whatever I damn well please. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

Some important updates: I decided several weeks ago on my placement for the fellowship. Achoti ("My Sister") is a Mizrachi ("eastern") feminist movement, uniting Israel's women of color--Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent, Ethiopians, Bedouins, Druze, Palestinians, and migrant workers. It's feminism from a non-western perspective, and in good keeping with some of my previous jobs, I'll be working with some seriously kickass Mizrachi women on two different projects, which I'll explain a little better later on.

First, though: with all the options that exist--and man, does Israel have NGOs!--why did I choose Achoti?

My introduction to Achoti was spent at the first working group meeting of organizations interested in creating a fair trade certification system for Israel and Palestine. I was blown away by the whole thing--the idea of fair trade not just as a novelty but as an alternative economic model, the feminist and environmentalist perspective, the basic idea that the international standards must be adapted to suit the realities of Israeli and Palestinian workers--and I was equally awed to be a part of this incredible process. But all in all, my decision to work for Achoti was, in large part, because of this: after the meeting, I went out for coffee with Achoti's director, Shula, and Clarice, a longtime Achoti activist who is starting the second year of her Ph.D at Yale. When I explained the basics of my program to Clarice, adding that I was in the process of deciding which organization I'd work with, she looked at me seriously.

"I think it's very important you come and work for Achoti," she said. "It's very chic--and I don't mean to take away from the important work by saying this, but I'll say it anyway. It's very chic for American activists to go work with the Palestinians. But we [Mizrachim]--we are invisible. No one comes from America to volunteer with us. It's like we don't even exist, like our problems don't exist."

At this point in my life, I feel like I have a pretty firm grasp of the dynamics of the conflict between, in the simplest of terms, Israelis and Palestinians. What I have yet to wrap my head around in any elegant manner is the dynamic of the other "others" in Israeli society. Besides that, the women at Achoti were just the sort of feminists I love--outspoken, intellectual, and radical. Even to be a fly on the wall in the Achoti House, I felt, would be an opportunity to learn.

Which brings me to now, as I sit here sipping my little glass of arak, thinking about how it is that I'm almost twenty two and just realized that I'm living my life's dream.

I remember the day when I was about fifteen and I ran downstairs to the kitchen in a flurry of excitement, bursting at the seams to tell my parents about my vision of socio-political theatre. Fast forward to last tuesday at Cafe Rojet, next to the clocktower square in Yafo, where Zmira, the director of the Achoti/Arous El Bahr Israeli-Palestinian women's theatre project is telling me (in Hebrew) that she doesn't like the amateur connotation of the term "community theatre" and therefore prefers the term "socio-political theatre". Fast forward to this weekend at Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam, where we kicked off rehearsals for the show with the most amazing group of Israeli and Palestinian women I've ever met.

Rewind through the years of activism relating to Israel and Palestine, and pause at all the times in my life when people have asked me what I want to do when I grow up, and I told them that I want to start a political theatre project.

And finally, fast forward to earlier tonight, when we sat in our closing circle for the weekend. Many of the women spoke about what they told their friends and family about where they were going this weekend, about the incredulity at meeting with "the other", and all of a sudden we all remembered that we were doing something really quite radical, when the truth was that we had such group chemistry that it escaped us almost entirely that there should be any boundaries among us. Someone attributed it to the Mizrachiut, the eastern-ness of the project.

"Stop it," someone else said, laughing, "you're going to upset Lior. She's Ashkenazi."

"Hey," I said, "I'm Ashkenazi too."

Raghda, the Palestinian group facilitator, a friend of Kinneret's from Women and their Bodies, dismissed me. "You're American."

Nuha, a Sufi Palestinian and foster mother of thirteen who practically adopted me during the weekend, disagreed. "You're Palestinian," she said.



So here I am, sipping my little glass of arak, about to turn twenty two and wondering how it is, exactly, that my life's dream just decided to come true.

S

 

"Ken. Lo. Yemina. Smola. Bevakasha. Toda rabah."

The Peruvian man sitting next to me on the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv was nervously trying the few words of Hebrew he'd taught himself.

"Petach tikvah?" he asked me.

"No," I said, struggling to remember any useful bits of my three years of high school Spanish (it wouldn't be the last time), "Yo vivo en Yafo."

"Donde esta Yafo?" he asked.

"Sur de Tel Aviv." Did I say it right? I think I said it right.

"Cuantas minutas?"

An interesting question. How to answer it? There's no clear border between Yafo and Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv began as a Jewish suburb of Yafo—it's a little like asking how far Brooklyn is from New York, except maybe even more vague. Thursday night, walking around the Pishpeshuk, a guy from a political party somewhat akin to PETA asked me to sign a petition to get his party on the municipal election ballot.

"At Tel Avivit?" he asked. Am I a "Tel Avivian"?

"Lo," I answered negatively. "Yafoit." Jaffan.

"Tel Aviv, Yafo—oto davar," he said. Same thing.

"Mamash lo," I answered, very much not. "Ani gara shama," I said, indicating the next street over. This, if he hadn't noticed, was definitely not Tel Aviv.

It didn't matter. To him it's all the same, because politically speaking, they are both part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, and anyone in the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality could sign his petition. But as an official Yafo resident at last, I felt it was my responsibility to note the difference.

"Toda," I thanked him, "aval b'chol mikrei ani lo ezrachit." (But in any case I'm not a citizen.)

He was dumbstruck. "Lama?" (Why?)

Why am I not a citizen? Well, first there's the practical issue of my not being born here. And while I have lived in Israel for a total of about 10% of my life (or maybe a little less), I have done so only as a temporary resident, student, and tourist. I may soon add another official status to my list—foreign worker, complete with all the requisite stigma and potential for airport detentions (or so I hear)—but, as ever, will remain a non-citizen.

I could, at this point, easily launch into a philosophical discussion of nationality and what it means to be a citizen of any formal entity—intentionally or otherwise. And there is privilege, of course, and especially in Israel an extremely fucked up and discriminatory system of granting citizenship or not to based on ethnicity. Which would naturally lead me to discuss ethnic nationalisms in general and not just as they pertain to Israel (because I do not think Israel must always be the test case for people whose argument against its structure is actually an argument against all ethnic nationalism). And it would be honest, and it would be something I'm thinking about as I begin to get used to my old-new home, and it would be something I am likely to write.

But instead, I'm going to tell some stories.

Last week, Amir knocked on my door. I hadn't seen him since my return and I greeted him with a big hug. After the usual niceties (How was your flight? Etc.) he announced, "We are eating salad. You want to join?" The table was set with a feast of fresh vegetables from our organic farm share, which was exactly what I had in mind to eat with the temperature and humidity comparable to DC in the summer. The four of us—Amir, Kinneret, Iris, and I—sat around and talked and laughed and it was as if I had never left. Kinneret and Amir are preparing for their impromptu wedding (!) on Friday (!!) and things are exciting around the house as the date draws nearer.

The next day, Iris came back from work and we took our new Scrabble set and hit the beach. The temperature was markedly lower as the breeze off the Mediterranean blew sand into the basket of grapes we bought along the way, and we watched the sun turn red and sink into the sea, a sailboat silhouetted against it in a perfectly picturesque moment.

Then we went home and made eggplant parmesan.

 

*

 

Many things have changed in Yafo since last I was here. On Thursday, Yonatan came in from Jerusalem and we went to a special event held each Thursday in the Yafo flea market called "pishpeshuk". Next time I'll post some pictures. It's basically a big street festival, complete with food, art, live music, and street performers, plus all the stores in the shuk stay open until midnight. We walked around for a while, stopping in an art exhibition of candid photos of Israeli politicians in their own homes. ("It's so interesting," Iris noted the day before as we walked through on our way home from the beach, "because these are some of the most inaccessible people. And here's Golda Meir making a sandwich for her kids.") Then we walked over to Jerusalem St. for falafel from my falafel guy, Nissim, who remembered me and asked where I'd been for so long. Afterwards, we went back to the Pishpeshuk and listened to a band play what Yonatan calls "leftist pop" (reggae-influenced rock sung by someone with dreadlocks) and watched a little boy playing along with his miniature guitar, bright blond curls bobbing up and down.

But like I said, a lot is changing. There at least three new little coffee shops, all of which have opened in the last four months. There's a giant gate thing in the clocktower square (who knows what that's about) and Jerusalem Street is completely barricaded from the new Mishkenot Ruth Daniel building to Raziel St.—they're tearing it apart to install track for a light rail system that isn't even fully approved yet and won't start running for at least another five years. Yonatan and I mused on all the new stuff, and in the end we decided that what bothers us about all the development isn't that things change, it's that they're developing not for the community that lives in the area, but for the community they want to live in the area. And, as Iris said, "you don't see any Arab women passing their time in these coffee shops".

But as I wrote in a letter to a friend earlier today, there will be many months of righteous indignation to come. Soon I'll update with news of my placement process and many more exciting things. In the meantime, please keep in your mind the picture of me and Iris on the beach, watching Jaffa's stones turn to silhouettes against the sun setting over the sea.

 

Many sweaty Jaffa hugs,

S

T-2 days to departure and it still hasn't hit me.

I sold my car today (byebye Lucille!) and bought a ton of stuff at Target that's way cheaper here than in Israel (bras, face wash, oil-free sunscreen, etc.) I said goodbye to a lot of people that I love very much and probably won't see for a long time. I'm moving to another continent for the foreseeable future. What?

So there it is. The blog is back up and running. Call me before Thursday night--otherwise, see you on Skype.

Love,

S
(skype name: "littler0se"--that's a zero instead of the "o")

Wednesday afternoon, Wayne gave me a kiss on the cheek and a big hug.

"The little one is all grown up!"

"You did great," said Aaron as he shooed us out for his next meeting. "Go ring the bell."

It was past 5:30 when I left Aaron's office and the campus was quiet and a little chilly. Knots in my belly and in my throat, but with a contented smile on my lips, I passed a couple of people hanging out outside the library. No big group was waiting to cheer. Of all the things on my mind, planning a whole bell ringing just seemed unimportant. I walked over to the bell and unceremoniously rang myself division free.

I smiled. The two people outside the library seemed taken off-guard by the bell but they smiled to me as I passed by again. I put on my sunglasses and took another swig of beer.

Last night, the rabbi asked if I feel liberated.

I don't.

Right now, I'm sad. All things considered, I've got about the lowest-stress graduation possible. I have a summer job in DC and I leave for Israel on July 3rd. When I get there, I have my partner, a house, awesome roommates, friends, and a job waiting for me. I'm going back to my life in Jaffa. But right now, I'm thinking about how I've seen my last Massachusetts winter in who knows how long. Amherst has been my home for the past four years, and in some ways I wish I'd become more of a disgruntled Div III, sick of Hampshire and itching to leave. Aaron told me once that he had a student who took an extra semester to finish his Div III because "he just didn't get sick of it." I'm still not sick of my Div III.

How can I reflect on my four years here? I think I ate away at the experience like a starving woman. I accomplished everything I wanted. I'm a much different person than when I started and I'm really sad to be leaving soon. Western Massachusetts is like a picture book, and Hampshire was my dream for so long. I have so many exciting things in my future, but leaving here feels like breaking up with a long-time lover for no good reason besides the earth's made it around the sun four times.

So college is over and Div Free hasn't felt that free yet. The terms of my life are changing so fast, and I feel like I'm being thrown in head first. I can do it--I know I'm going to be fine. But saying goodbye to my friends, to Hampshire, to Massachusetts...it's just not the part I'm looking forward to.

S

PS- There will be one more opportunity to see a reading of my new play, Storms in Jaffa, either the 15th or 16th of May. I will post when I have more details.

I got the fellowship! I am now officially a 2008-09 New Israel Fund Social Justice Fellow.

Here is a list of things Yonatan and I want to do together next year:

• hold hands on the street- no more long distance!!
  
• interior design of my room!
  
• furniture shopping in the flea market
• paint canvases for my room
• Mangal on the beach in Yafo
• Dag al haDan + camping
• Machtesh Ramon + camping
• Chagall windows in Hadassah Hospital
• Tiyulim around Jerusalem
• Sushi + Princess Bride + Stardust
• craft night (rice heating pads?)
  
• make more monsters
• nachalat binyamin
• perfect my omelet-flipping technique
• travel to Sinai and/or Jordan
• go dancing
• run on the beach
• hidden talents night II
• West Wing Marathon!!
  
• House marathon
• make big elaborate dinners
• new and improved blog design
  

If you're coming to Israel next year, my guest bed is yours!

S

Labels: israel, Jaffa, yonatan

It's April 2nd, and I'm now about three months away from my projected take-off. Here are the basics: I've applied for a couple of funds and one big awesome fellowship (for which I have an interview on Monday) which will take me to Israel for the next year. In all, I'll be in Israel for the next year or two, starting in July, after my job back in DC with Brit Tzedek. The exact length will be determined by how long Yonatan will take to finish his degree. Afterwards we'll travel--to Thailand, Cambodia, and India if it's in the winter; South America if it's summer.

I'm writing my new play, which is also my Div III, and doesn't yet have a title. I've got a major deadline looming and I trawl the internet for inspiration. In one of these efforts, poking around Facebook, I discovered that an inordinate number of my friends have moved to Israel to join the army. Ok, it's not exactly a huge percentage, and it's not really any of my close friends--mostly acquaintances from Young Judaea.

How strange, I think to myself, that I don't know anyone in the US army but more than a handful of Israeli soldiers--Americans, that is, who moved to Israel just to be soldiers. These are kids I grew up with over years at camp and conventions, who went through all the awkward stages of adolescence next to me. I once had a minor meltdown when I realized my childhood friends from Israel were going into the army. Now I'm faced with an even stranger situation, where my childhood friends from America are moving and enlisting in droves.

Since I left Young Judaea, eyes opened to the organization's one-sided bent, I've had a lot of time to reflect on why it is that I turned out the way I am, and most of my Young Judaea friends turned out the way they are. It seems like only a few have, like me, experienced Israel outside the lens of the traditional view and become open to Palestinian narratives. Most have become more and more militaristic, to the point of relocating thousands of miles to join a foreign army. Could it be that our upbringing in Young Judaea contributed to this pro-military world view? Searching back through my memory, I can say the general attitude within Young Judaea towards the Israeli army was deferential, even romantic. But I can't say that I--and I think my fellow Judaeans--ever actually thought of it as an army. IDF tee shirts were YJ chic, and to hook up with an Israeli soldier (in uniform, of course) would grant you the ultimate bragging right. But did we think about what it meant to be a soldier? Did we think about how the M-16 is not just for show, but is used to kill people? Children that we were, did we think about killing people as part of the job of a soldier?

We glorified the army. Yes. We did. And we never looked at it critically. In fact, we never looked critically at almost anything. And it was exhilarating--we felt like we were part of something special, a global movement where we, as Americans who grew up in the minority, could feel solidarity with our people. I can't help but think that this sort of upbringing is exactly the kind of thing that would cause a young American kid to become an Israeli soldier. It's that wanting to be a part of something, wanting to feel strong and secure.

Many of my friends in the peace movement went through radical personal transformations to get to where they are today, and there's a moment a lot of us have had where we realize the person on the other side of the fence--metaphorically speaking--could very easily be us. I'm having one of those moments in retrospect, thinking about the scariest encounter I ever had with Israeli soldiers. Below is an excerpt from the final and never posted Aaron/Wayne Update, written in September of this year as part of my Div II retrospective. As you read it, imagine the soldier is a kid I played spin-the-bottle with when I was eleven, or a kid I acted with in a play, or one with whom I played games or climbed mountains. Imagine I sat in a circle with them at the end of each summer, passing around a candle and saying we'd never forget one another--ever--and that this was the best time of our lives.

I had the opportunity, towards the end of my stay in Israel, to travel to the Windows office in the West Bank town of Tul Karem. Rutie set me up with two women from Machsom Watch, the organization of Israeli women who stand at the checkpoints to monitor human rights and advocate for the Palestinians. They were to give me a ride to Jibara, one of the closest checkpoints to the town and refugee camp of Tul Karem. Mahmoud would meet me at the other side of the checkpoint and take me to the Windows center. I’d spend the day in Tul Karem, and in the evening the women from Machsom Watch would pick me up and take me back to Tel Aviv.

There were a few things I did not know before I embarked on this trip. First of all, the women from Machsom Watch were not going to be monitoring the checkpoint at Jibara. This checkpoint was only for large freight vehicles; no Israelis or Palestinians were allowed to cross there. As a foreign national, I was allowed to cross where I liked, which was strange but, at the same time, convenient. Second, I was not the only additional passenger on this trip. The women had another charge, a guy about my age from northern Tel Aviv. When the women asked why he wanted to come with Machsom Watch, he said he’s currently in the Army, but he recently saw a film about some of the problems with the wall and the checkpoints, so he decided to see for himself. On the way, the women tried to explain some of the issues to him. The main point, they said, is that it’s basically a farce. No one trying to set off a bomb would bother going through a checkpoint. There are ways around the wall, places where it isn’t secure or isn’t complete, so the people who are actually affected by the checkpoints are the ones that clearly have nothing to hide.

We got to Jibara and one of the women got out of the car with me to make sure the checkpoint commander would allow me to pass down the dirt road on the other side of the checkpoint. He agreed. The Machsom Watch woman pointed me in the direction of the dirt road and waited until I had crossed through the checkpoint to leave.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment that I realized that I wasn’t going down the right road. I asked a man on the sidewalk if this was the right way to Tul Karem, and he pointed me back towards the checkpoint and through a fence off to the side. Feeling more than a bit stupid, I walked back through the checkpoint and headed for the fence.

I didn’t get too far before a soldier with a huge gun strapped to his chest came running after me and shouting in Hebrew to stop.

Telling myself to remain calm, I turned, smiled at him, and said “Boker Tov” (good morning.) He told me I wasn’t allowed to cross there. I told him we’d already cleared it with the commander.

“It is forbidden for you to pass here,” he repeated in Hebrew.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re a Jewish girl. You’re an Israeli girl. You can’t pass at this checkpoint.”

I smiled innocently again and reached slowly into my bag to pull out my passport. “No I’m not,” I said, “I’m an American.”

The guy was bewildered. I was proud my Hebrew was that convincing, but not too excited to prolong the encounter. He examined my passport thoroughly. “You’re an Israeli citizen too?”

“No,” I said, “I’m an American.”

More searching for any sign of dual citizenship. Why I didn’t switch to English right there I just don’t know. “Are you sure you’re not also an Israeli?” he asked me skeptically.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I laughed. He handed me back my passport.

“OK.”

Mahmoud was waiting on the other side of the fence with a cab driver. He took me on a little driving tour of the refugee camp and the town of Tul Karem. To call it a town doesn’t really do it justice. Crumbling cinderblock buildings built all on top of one another, with the only noticeable difference between the “refugee camp” and the “town” being that the refugee camp was, if possible, even more densely populated than the town. Minimal furniture, if any, could be found inside the living spaces, with thin mattresses to sleep as many as possible on pretty much any interior floor. It was heartbreaking and fascinating. I had wanted to take pictures, but in the moment felt like a voyeur.

Mahmoud took me to the Windows center to meet some of the kids involved in Windows programs. We had an extremely interesting conversation, with Mahmoud translating between the kids’ Arabic and my Hebrew. I asked if they thought being involved with Windows had changed the way they think about things, and the oldest of the boys said that he used to think that all Jews were bad and if he ever met one he’d kill him.

“But now,” he said, “I have Jewish friends too. And I know they’re not all bad. So I don’t think like that anymore. I want to work with them for peace.”

One of the questions he asked them was whether they thought there could be peace while there is occupation. Predictably (and understandably), they all answered “no”. All until the last of the boys on the end had his turn to answer.

“Yes,” he said.

Mahmoud was taken aback. “If someone came into your house and took over your room, could you be friends with him?”

“It’s not the same,” the boy answered. “We don’t have the power to end the occupation. We’ve tried. It doesn’t work. We do have the power to make peace.”

Later that night, after a delicious meal at Mahmoud’s sister’s house, where the wall was no more that 100 meters away and a picturesque suburban town sat mockingly just on the other side, I realized it was getting late and probably time to go home. I called my contact at Machsom Watch.

“Oh no!” she said. “We forgot all about you! We’re already back in Tel Aviv. I’m so sorry, but you’ll have to get another ride home.”

Another ride? Right, like it’s so easy to hitchhike from a refugee camp in the West Bank across the border to Tel Aviv. I ended the call and, very calmly, told Mahmoud what had happened.

“Ok, no problem, you’ll stay with me,” he offered.

“No, thank you so much Mahmoud,” I said, “but I really have to get back.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you scared?”

Yes. I was scared. And it was completely irrational. I had seen far fewer soldiers and guns in my entire day in Tul Karem than I would normally see walking to the grocery store in Tel Aviv. The fear was entirely psychological, but it was real.

“No,” I lied. “It’s just that they’re expecting me in Jerusalem. I’ll call the Tel Aviv office and see what we can do.”

I couldn’t tell him. How do you tell someone you don’t think it’s safe enough for you to spend one night in the place he lives every day of his life? You can’t. I couldn’t.

The Tel Aviv office sent a taxi, and I caught the last bus back to Jerusalem. Three days later, I was back in America.

Labels: army, div ii, div iii, field study, hampshire, israel, palestine, usa

In the Air

Morgan Spurlock stands on a street corner in Anytown, USA, with a boombox. "What do you think of when you hear this?" he asks, and presses play. The Muezzin calls out from the speakers. The "man on the street" smiles uncomfortably.

I close my eyes.
I know what I'm thinking of.

It's my first week working in the theater and already I'm in love. I'm taping down some microphone cables for the show later on, when all of a sudden, I hear the Muezzin begin the afternoon call to prayer. It sounds as if it's seeping out from the stones of the theater's vaulted walls. And then, another sound: a voice singing, passively. "Allah hu akbar..." Ziv, my new boss, technical director at the theater, has joined in as he changes gels from the top of a ladder. I smile to myself. It's my first week working in the theater and already I'm in love.

"I don't know," says Man-On-The-Street. "I'd say it sounds like you've got it on rewind."

It's a scene from Spurlock's television series, 30 Days, in which he challenges someone in each episode to throw him or herself into the life of someone totally different for thirty days. In this episode, a good God-fearing Christian boy from West Virginia is sent to Dearborn, Michigan to live with a Muslim family and study the Qur'an for a month. While he's not entirely cured of his prejudice by the end, he does a convincing job answering some of the more common Islamophobic questions on a local radio station and even canvasses the locals to sign a petition against racial profiling. He didn't seem to get too many signatures, but experiencing the negative reactions left him questioning his own preconceptions. In the end, he proves what Spurlock says at the close of the series's first episode in which he and his fiance try to make ends meet living on minimum-wage jobs:

I encourage you and I challenge you to let your guard down. To strip down your life and put yourself in the situation of someone else. Because you will be changed. You will walk out of this a different person. A more understanding person, hopefully a much more caring person. You will be affected, just like I've been affected. And I'm better for it. I'm better for being here.

I've seen the whole first season of 30 Days, which are all the episodes available on my personal in-flight TV touch-screen system, but these episodes warrant a second screening. Two hours and nine minutes remain until we land in Tel Aviv and it still hasn't sunk in. Despite my trusty flask and the glass of red wine I had, courtesy of the teetotalers with coupons sitting next to me, I didn't manage to sleep. The people on my program are, from what I can tell, mostly what I expected. I still won't see Yonatan for another week at least (!) and since this ten-hour flight has begun to feel like days, next week seems impossibly distant. Yet there it is, the green circle marking Tel Aviv, situated between Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, and Amman. Interesting that I'll be closer to Beirut than Jerusalem (I think) for the next week. And I still have that fucking paper to write. The sun is shining brightly now over swirling lakes of cloud as we fly to the east, but my internal clock is saying it's 2:37 am, which, in my universe, means bedtime might be soon. It's happened again. Time and space have stopped making sense.

So here she is: the now Ever So Experienced World Jetsetter, taking off again, ready for the bizarre and ironic moments to ensue so she can sardonically transpose them here. The adorable baby three rows ahead has remained adorable for most of the flight, but just let out a yell which woke up a less adorable baby who has started up being annoying once again. Cabin fever. I think, after all, I don't actually prefer the nonstop. Somehow, transferring planes in Paris, visiting another country via its airport for a few sleepy hours, being subject to further security screening and yelled at over the intercom by irritable French people seems to make more sense.

Watching these thirty-day adventures into the unknown, the uncomfortable, has got me thinking about my own thirty days to come, how I've been changed in that way in the past, and how I might be changed this time. Over the last few weeks I've found myself drawn to the uncomfortable positions, the gray areas, those questions we don't ask because there's no true answer that gives us what we want to hear. I'd like to say that I'm totally open, that I have no prior judgments, but if I'm honest, that's not the case. Then again, I guess that doesn't mean I can't still be changed.

An hour and forty-five minutes to wheels down. Just another night of insomnia in my book. I wish Yonatan could pick me up from the airport.

30 more days.

Labels: israel

Insomnia rears its hopped-up head and I can't sleep. Too excited, too much to read, itching to go and trying to get everything done.

I've been reading some in-fucking-credible Israeli blogs. The two Jaffa bloggers both responded to emails I sent them and I'll be meeting them both once I arrive. Is it creepy to read someone's blog, think it's amazing, and try to get in touch? I try to sound as un-creepy as possible, and the fact that I'm a woman mostly reaching out to other women bloggers lends a bit of de-creepification, I think. In any case, here are some of those awesome blogs. You should read them.

O C C U P I E D, by yudit
http://www.yuditilany.blogspot.com/

Yudit is a Jewish woman who lives in Jaffa and is involved in efforts to stop the demolition of many homes belonging to Palestinian families in Jaffa. She's got her finger spot on the pulse of some of the deepest problems of social inequity in Jaffa and, by extension, everywhere in Israel and Palestine. She's also a photographer, and has a sister site for her photography.


Mudpies in Jaffa, by aja
http://jaffamudpies.blogspot.com/

From her About Me: "I moved to Jaffa five years ago, and have loved every minute of it! My friends know that when I start grinning like a fool I am about to say... "I love my neighbourhood!" or something very similar. I have been a chef in Canada, a scuba diving instructor in Grand Cayman, a vagrant in India, a house painter in Florida, and have wandered around whenever and wherever I could."

She's got some beautiful photos as well, some beautiful pottery, and some very beautiful recipes (fueled by Israel's very own organic CSA--who knew?).


The West Bank Blog, by westbankblogger
http://westbankblogger.blogspot.com/

A young guy in Tel Aviv who writes accounts of his excursions into the West Bank with a couple different human rights groups. Very interesting first-hand accounts. From the blog:

The issues may be existential, but the day-to-day practice trudges on, same as the day before, in well lit streets or un-adorned, pre-fabricated offices. People go about doing their jobs and living their lives, being normal. This is how you control another people's land. Yes by convincing yourself that it belongs to you, (the truth of which remains debateable: according to the bible it's undeniable, and I for one think that such truths are subjective). But the settlers in the large settlement blocks and the authorised red-roofed settlements, and the bureaucrats in their offices live normal lives. Normality is their criterion of success, for if it's normal then it cannot be wrong.

And some non-Jaffan/Tel Avivians:

House of Joy and Beauty, by Beth
http://houseofjoy.blogspot.com

Beth, a native New Yorker, lives in a Chassidic settlement in the West Bank with her husband and children. Don't make your mind up yet. Read this post in particular--I've read it five or six times today. I'm telling you, do not decide you know what she's about before you read it. A taste:

"Do you understand," I continued, "that our checkpoint is not just some tollbooth on the road. It is a real place with real people living their human experiences..."

You'll have to read it for the rest. It's worth it.


Slightly Mad, by tafka PP
http://goingslightlymad.blogspot.com

If I had a slightly less firm grasp on space-time at the moment, I would be pretty convinced this woman is me, only British and ten years from now. She grew up in a Zionist youth movement, spent time in Israel as a child, returned as a young adult, and now is the only Jew working for a Palestinian charity in East Jerusalem. She finds solace in chocolate, blesses her friends who let her borrow their West Wing DVDs, and wittily points out the ironies of the conflict that people far to the extreme left and right can't see.

Truth is, whichever organizations or doctrines I might choose to belong to or identify with, I seem to have become a label-less raft in the sea of depressing news overkill. My notions of "Fair and Just Solution to the Conflict" are altered by almost every encounter I have with Palestinians/Israelis, and the exposure to the many different realities those encounters entail. It is downright exhausting, maintaining an informed political stance! And all the conflicting narratives - on both sides- don't half make yer head hurt.

Sound like any other blogger you all know and love? Creepy, right?
Must reads: The above selection is from this post. Also, her answer to the question, "Why, indeed, am I here?" But pretty much anything from the site is gold.

West Bank Mama, by westbankmama
http://westbankmama.wordpress.com,
formerly "West Bank Blog" (just one "er" off from our friend above...)

Just as it sounds: a mother living in a settlement in the West Bank, a place she describes as "a very newsworthy part of the world." Once again, don't make up your minds ahead of time--seriously don't--but if you did, they might not be completely off-base:

I can now say thank G-d for those "macho show-offs" who became veterans - because without them I may not have had the priveledge to grow up in safety in America and become that naive and ungrateful liberal. I thank G-d for the IDF soldiers who protect the woman I am now - less naive, proud to be a conservative, and profoundly grateful to the veterans of both of the countries that I love.

Jesus, it does all hit at once, doesn't it? I'm falling asleep at my keyboard now. Oy! And I actually woke up at a normal hour today. Happy blogging.

Sharon

Labels: Blogs, israel, Jaffa, Settlers, usa, West Bank

It's motion that gets me typing. This blog runs on kinetic energy. So, after cooling my heels in Amherst (mostly) for the last few months, I'm officially T-8 days to my next adventure (and counting).

The semester's wrapping up and, while I really should be working and NOT browsing for useful bits of travel advice and ingenious gear, the itch to move is starting to take over again. I thought it was the chai I drank too close to bedtime last night, but in retrospect, it's my wanderlusting heart pounding that's keeping me up until the wee hours. It's bad too, because the later I start staying up, the more impossible the jet lag will be when I arrive.

Enough build-up: I'll give you the details. I'm going to Israel with a group called Livnot u'Lehibanot (to build and to be built) on a heavily subsidized "Galilee fellowship" based around community service in the North, rebuilding bomb shelters and the like from the war in the summer of 2006. I'm torn about writing too much about the trip until I'm on the ground in Israel. I--I was going to explain, but I'm just going to have to be vague about this one. If you must know, you can read Aaron/Wayne Update #3 and take from it what you will. In any case, the program is only two weeks, after which I'll extend the trip through the end of January to do field research for my Div III, a new play I'm writing about Yafo. More on that to come later as well.

Arrangements are getting made and things are falling into order for the trip. I've worked it out to drive down to New Jersey and park my car at our cousins' house for the duration of my travels. Being without a car and using public transportation--I'm so excited! Of course, many more things remain to be done. According to the people at Livnot, I can't change my return flight until I'm in Israel, but I think I can probably work it out. My harddrive, which died over the summer and I miraculously did without and successfully put together my Div II portfolio, is still not in the hands of IBM and I'm forced to hound the data recovery specialist every night until I finally get through. I've got a new credit card since my magnetic strip was wearing out and I was being plunged into panic every once-in-a-while when it would erroneously come back "Declined". And, as I mentioned before, I've been doing my reading--on travel gear.

That's right, the time has come when I will connect the post's somewhat cryptic title to its substance through a colorful anecdote from my life. A few weeks ago, I went home with my wonderful modmate (and former producer) Crystal for Thanksgiving. As my American readers will know, Thanksgiving is a holiday that comes with a complex set of rituals and customs which true Amurrkins must follow unwaveringly. A large gathering of people must be arranged, which ideally should be comprised mostly of relatives who, despite their immense dislike for one another, must give thanks to their supreme being of choice for allowing them the honor of sharing some DNA, or at least an initial. A meal must be prepared, causing nearly immeasurable stress to the host (who must prepare it) and to the guests (who not only must eat it, but also maintain appearances of enjoying it). Traditional dishes include: one or more of several orange seasonable root vegetables, drenched in sugar and butter; bits of stale bread reconstituted with boiling water and butter; a mixture of the slimy contents of several cans with ingredients claiming to be vegetable derived from vegetables, topped with "onions" deep fried beyond biodegradability; and, of course, the most important dish, a form of poultry so genetically modified and injected with growth hormones that it cannot walk for most of its life and bears little to no resemblance to its majestic wild forebear. Before the guests may consume the meal, they must each proclaim their thanks to Supreme Being of Choice for something in their lives, a task for which the insatiable American consumer is extremely unsuited. Consequently, this ritual is punctuated by whispered numbers, as each guest counts the number of guests who must proclaim thanks before themself in an effort to calculate the amount of time they have to come up with something to be grateful for. After every mom, pop, personal savior, and football team has been thanked, the gorging begins. As ill-equipped as they are to understand their privilege (much less express gratitude for it) the participants are highly qualified in gluttony. The binge continues until all participant are either in tryptophan-induced stupor or return to the couch to watch football: the one acceptable situation for American men to wear spandex, smack some man booty, tackle, and play with each other's balls.

Believe it or not, I actually enjoy the sacraments mentioned thusfar. But the holiday does not end with dinner. No, the real challenge comes approximately twelve hours later, when Americans will line up outside every shopping mall in America at four in the morning in the hopes of capitalizing on the "good deals" available, a hope which 147 million Americans will use to justify spending 10.3 billion dollars--in just one day. As further evidence, take this man, quoted in Black Friday coverage in the Washington Post:

As he shopped with his wife, Mark Zaidan acknowledged that Black Friday is "insane" but said he enjoys it. "Yeah, we're crazy," he admitted. "We know it's stupid; we know it's outrageous."

The Zaidans, who drove to Leesburg from Chevy Chase said the post-Thanksgiving shopping is a tradition for them, not a necessity.

"We both have much more than we really need. We're really blessed, but whatever," he said as his wife handed him a purse to hold. It was $125, marked down from $195.

Unable to meet their target wake-up time at an hour earlier than our usual college bedtime, Crystal and her sister Becca hit the mall decidedly late in the game, and I decided to join them. Oh, the things you can buy! And tax-free, since the closest mall to Crystal's dad's house is in New Hampshire. The trip could have been a consumer wonderland--and it was, for the 147 million other people there--had I not recently begun abiding by a new philosophy: the two duffel bags rule.

In just a few months, I'll be graduating college. This means a significant move for most college students, but for me, it means leaving the country for at least a year, which means either getting rid of almost everything I own and putting anything I want to keep into storage, save for what I choose to take with me. Which all must fit into two duffel bags. To point out another little-known privilege, I'll note that, were I traveling from any country other than America, I would have to consolidate down to one duffel bag, not two. In any case, the point is that anything I buy now, I'll probably get rid of in six months. Therefore, it is only worthwhile to buy an item if I am pretty sure it will make the cut into the two duffel bags. Although I tried on several items of clothing over the course of Black Friday, I only made one small purchase. Here are some guidelines for things that are more likely to make it into the two duffel bags:

• Smaller and lighter is better. The larger and heavier an item is, the less room there will be for any other items. Compact versions of essentials, things that fold up, lightweight and sturdy materials are all things to look for.
• Items of clothing must have at least two uses. I could--and probably will--come up with an entire wardrobe that is fuctional, stylish, interesting, and uses 10-15 items or less. In fact, I've been devising such a wardrobe in my quest to pack the perfect two duffel bags. I'll post once I've finalized my items. This sounds harder than it is. The first step is to be very honest with yourself. What do you normally wear that makes you feel like you look good? What is your favorite shirt/sweater/pair of pants, the one you'd wear every day (and you may have already)? Second, figure out what role each item you already own plays, figure out a color palette that will allow all your pieces to mix-and-match easily, and get rid of any "favorite" items that don't fit. Since I can't take too many items with me, I have to be able to layer. I know I look and feel best in tops with a deep v-neck and longer waist length. Tank tops in basic colors can double as camisoles under sweaters; sweaters can be layered under each other or a light jacket for warmth, a light jacket becomes insulation under a warm coat, windbreaker, or rain gear. All tops should match all bottoms (skirts and pants) if possible. I've been searching for items that really can be multiple things, like skirts that convert into dresses or tops, or the ever popular zip-off pants-into-shorts (which might be more appealing if I ever actually wore shorts.)
• Scarves: the new Towels. Douglas Adams came up with thousands of uses for the towel, and christened it the "most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have". Obviously, Doug never had to pack into a small clutch or look fabulous in gross travel clothes. I love scarves and have a ton of them, which I'm dreading having to part with soon enough. A nice scarf, draped well, can make any outfit look classy and sexy, with a little "just rolled into town" flair, and if it's really pretty, it can also be tacked to the wall as a textile hanging in a dull, impersonal room. My favorite scarf right now is a superfine wool one from a Tibetan store in Adams Morgan. It's warm enough to be a great winter scarf, a blanket on an airplane, or an emergency shawl, an it's small enough to pack into a small purse. It can be headgear in the desert or on a bad hair day or when visiting a holy site, and even be wrapped into a skirt in a pinch. And, of course, it can be used as a towel. In fact, in reviewing all the things in the Hitchhiker's Guide that a towel can do, a scarf can do them all just as well, plus the other things I mentioned. I feel Douglas Adams would support this feminine towel upgrade.
• Things that you'll need but won't necessarily think of until you need them and all the stores are closed. A corkscrew tops the list. Rachel and Samantha and I once had a beautiful bottle of wine on the beach, but couldn't drink it because we had no corkscrew and it was shabbat. Ibuprophen--why can't you buy it in Israel? I do not know. A sharp folding knife or multitool (in CHECKED baggage) comes in handy, as does some sort of cutting surface. Scissors. Can opener. Nail clipper. It sucks to not have one of these things and really, really need it. I would include a bottle opener but for the fact that, a) courtesy of Campus Progress, I have had one on my keychain for over a year, and b) you should just learn how to get a beer bottle open using your fist and the edge of a counter, table, or railing. It looks badass and comes in handy.
  
• Bare-bones kitchen. Assume you don't have anything but a single burner and a sink, and you want to make your own food. Since you already have a knife and a cutting surface, lets assume you can get big things (like pots) there. A bamboo sushi mat can be used for sushi, but also as a trivet or a surface to help dry dishes. A wooden spoon or, better, a stirring spatula will go far. I've decided to start carrying in my purse a little roll-up with bamboo fork, knife, and spoon to use instead of disposable plastics, so one set of cutlery is covered. A mason jar can be a drinking glass and double to store food, but probably shouldn't go through luggage.
  

I'm sure there's more, but it's extremely late and I'm actually getting tired. Good night for now, and more to come soon.

S

Labels: hampshire, meta travel, usa